


Darlingstern - aka Halloween Night

by superfluffycool



Category: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluffycool/pseuds/superfluffycool
Summary: This is an expanded version of Chapter 10. This might be a one off, or the beginning of a Darlingstern collection.
Relationships: Darlington/Alex Stern
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	1. Halloween Night

“Is this okay?” Alex had put Darlington to bed, fully clothed sans shoes, and pulled the heavy comforter over him. His teeth were chattering and he was shivering violently beneath the thick brocade. Alex was shivering herself. She’d forsaken her usual layers for her Queen Mab costume that night and was regretting it now. There was little more than a black slip, fishnets, and her one warm coat to keep out the damp. Darligton’s eyes were closed and he grunted in the affirmative. 

A large fireplace stood in front of the bed’s footboard and she went over to inspect it. Black Elm was huge, and the fireplace was perfectly to scale, imposing and magnificent. There was a pile of wood already in the hearth and a small stack to the side for replenishment. There had to be some way to light it. 

“Top of the mantlepiece. On the right.” Darlington had been watching her and read her mind. She did as he instructed, throwing a match into the dark, sooty opening and then poking at the logs until a petite flame caught.

She had never been so cold before in her life. California never dipped below 50 degrees and the coming New England winter already chilled her down to the marrow. She scanned the room for another blanket. Darlington was too fragile to leave by himself, not that she wanted to leave. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” he chattered, “there’s blankets in the closet down the hall. And the couch downstairs is comfortable.”

Alex crossed back to the bed, “Move over. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.” She laid down, facing him. The warmth of the fire had yet to make its way to the rest of the room and she was still shivering. “Darlington?” There was a question on her mind, “The Merity...Manuscript’s magic only works from manipulating perception, right?” She remembered the notes from A History of Lethe. At the time it made little impression, but now? She desperately needed to understand exactly how their magic worked. He nodded. She pushed forward, her heart in her throat, “So it only works with what’s already there.” 

He swallowed hard, his eyes, normally a bright blue looked like cobalts in the semi-darkness. His body tensed and he took a deep breath. “We don’t have to talk about it, now. It’s okay,” she lied. She was dying to talk about it and what it all meant but sensed his discomfort. It wasn’t fair to have this conversation right now, not when so much was on the line. But... maybe it was like her friends back in Cali had always told her, “Drunk assholes, are sober assholes.” Meaning, whatever Darlington felt, however he behaved, wasn’t completely out of character. The drug just let it loose. 

She rubbed her hand brusquely up and down his arm, trying to slow his shivering. This was an odd reversal for her, being the sober one nursing a fucked up friend. To have it be Darlington, of all people made the night even more surreal.

“I feel sick.” He muttered, looking so pained Alex was suddenly alert.

“Are you going to puke?!” She sat up, scanning the room for a trash can,

“No,” he moaned, “not like that.” He closed his eyes, “I feel sick about what I did. The way I behaved. Towards you.”

Alex relaxed and returned to the bed. “Whatever. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me.” His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at her with such sadness. “Not your fault.” She’d meant to dismiss the subject, but he kept looking at her. He slipped a long hand from under the thick comforter, placing it atop her own.

“If I could go back in time and fix it, protect you from that, I would.” He squeezed her fingers with his own. He had large, elegant hands. Alex gently brushed away a chunk of hair from his forehead and he gazed up at her. His expression was a mixture of confusion and expectation.

Slowly, she lifted the blanket and joined him beneath its weight. The sheets were cold, but Darlington’s body provided her with some much needed warmth. They wouldn’t talk about this tonight, not when he was so far from himself. Several hours ago, she’d had no idea how much she wanted him, but now, her heart and body ached with it. She didn’t think she could handle it if he gave her hopes of...no, she couldn’t let herself think it.

Boys like Darlington, or rather, boys that looked like Darlington, weren’t outside her sphere in Cali. They’d come around looking for a good time, some drugs, a tumble with a wild girl, but leave to go back to their regular lives of golf games and frat parties. They were tourists in her reality. But Darlington was different. He looked like one of those preppy guys, but didn’t have the same arrogance. She’d wondered what type of woman he was attracted to, more than once, imagining his needs and desires and playing with them like a puzzle, one she couldn’t quite solve.

He was different than any other guy she’d encountered. He listened to her, checked to see if she was okay. Was patient and kind, even when he was frustrated or disappointed. For the first time in her life, she understood what it felt like to be respected.

His breathing relaxed and he was shivering less. They both were. The fire crackled and she was suddenly aware of the strange moment they were both in. Their wits disarmed for the first time. Such moments of connection were few and far between after she started using drugs. These instances offered such clarity, but made her feel terribly, horribly vulnerable. Before she’d come to Yale, before she’d learned that magic existed, these moments were her own version of magic. She placed a hand on his cheek, then slowly brought her lips to his. A test, but also an expression of what she longed to say but didn’t have the words for. His mouth was soft and he sighed deeply. How would he remember this in the morning?

“Alex.” He ran his fingers through her hair...

She didn’t want to take advantage of him. But she wanted more. She kissed him again, a bit more hungrily, and he matched her intensity. Her body felt like it was on fire and it took every ounce of restraint to pull away. She stroked his cheek, and stared into his perfect face. “Goodnight, Darlington.” And she turned, pulling his arm over her torso and snuggling into his long form. She noted, with some delight, the stiffness jutting against her lower back.

He splayed his hand across her stomach, squeezing her further into himself. He nuzzled into her neck and sighed, “Goodnight, Stern.”

Alex felt him drift off before she did. A thousand eager questions running through her mind. Despite this unease, she fell asleep with some hope in her heart that this thing, whatever it was, really happened, and Daniel Arlington was a lot more than what he’d seemed.


	2. The Next Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of what happened the night before, from Darlington's perspective.
> 
> I owe a huge debt to @ink_drunk for writing her own Darlingstern fanfic that was so good, it felt like canon. As I was writing my own, I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't.

_Darlington was having a bizarre but enjoyable dream. In it, he ambled through a lush forest. The trees were thick and old, providing a heavy canopy, but somehow open enough for him to see by moonlight. He was on a mission, though he didn’t know what it was. Up ahead a figure stood in the middle of a clearing. He quickened his pace. This must be what he’d been looking for._

_As he got closer, he saw it was Alex, but not Alex. She looked mostly the same but glowed with power in the moonlight. Stars orbited around her forming a slow whirlwind of sparkle. Her loose, sheer robe covered her from neck to foot but hid nothing and the tattoos he’d helped her remove after their first meeting were back and seemed alive on her skin._

_The site of her resplendent brought him to his knees. His purpose in the forest was this, to find her. At last he felt complete._

_Alex noticed him, beckoned him forth and Darlington eagerly rose to approach. “I’ve been waiting for you.”_

_Darlington was overcome. She nodded for him to come closer. Without saying a word, he understood he was to remove her robe and bathe in the moon glow. Behind her he took in her scent and caressed her body, cupping his hand over the softness of her breasts as he pulled the robe off one shoulder. The brilliance of her skin blinded him and he pushed his face into her raven hair._

Darlington woke with a jolt. The light he’d been blinded by in his dream was the cold morning sun. In his tumble home he hadn’t drawn the curtains. The trees had let go of their last leaves, spilling them onto the lawn of Black Elm and their bare trunks offered little protection.

Like his dream, Alex was there, and his hand was cupped around the soft mounds of her chest. As if it couldn’t get more embarrassing, his erection was comfortably nestled between her thighs. Did she kiss him last night? The memory floated in a delicious haze of remembrance. This was an odd turn of events, though if he’d been more honest with himself, he’d have realized how drawn to her he was from the very beginning.

Her file had made him a little afraid of her. She was capable of seeing Grays, an asset, but she was also wild - a dropout, a drug user, and somehow involved in a gruesome quadruple homicide. Their first meeting threw a wrench in his image of her - she was smaller than what he’d expected, petite, and dark. Where he anticipated a junkie’s hungry temper, he found a still watchfulness, punctuated by moments of sharp wit. She’d survived a lot, and her guardedness atop her gift made her all the more intriguing.

What he needed to do was remove his hand and physically calm himself down before she woke up and discovered how turned on he was. Darlington thought of the driest verses, he thought of clearing Grays and the Fairy Queen. Young men, like himself, were unfortunately difficult to turn off.

He relaxed his hand and began to extract it, ever so slowly. Alex shifted and put her own hand over his. “I’m awake, you know.” Her voice was hoarse, but soft.

Darlington didn’t move but began to blurt out apologies, “It wasn’t...I didn’t realize because I was asleep and I had the strangest dream…”

Alex interrupted him, “Do you want to talk, or do you want to fuck?” Darlington’s brain was short-circuiting. The answer he wanted to give was, ‘both.’ He didn’t understand what was happening and the talking about it would make him feel less ethically corrupt.

Alex cut to the chase, “Pick one.”

Darlington let his animal instincts take over, well almost. “The second one,” he gasped.

Alex moved his hand down between her legs and arched her back, grinding her bottom against his throbbing erection. The jeans he was wearing hadn’t bothered him all night in his drugged out stupor, but now they felt like they were strangling him. He bit her ear, the fleshy skin of her lobe stretching between his teeth, payback for her own bite the night before.

Alex groaned and rolled on top of him, quickly beginning to undo his belt. It was as if she’d read his mind. This was not going the way he wanted. If he was honest with himself, he was probably less in control of the situation than he would have liked. But Alex was different than other girls - women he’d been with. He usually went for older women, admired their confidence, but he’d had a modicum of control, whereas here, he seemingly had none. Still, he couldn’t completely abandon his principles.

“Wait!” Alex was removing his jeans and struggling to move them past his ankles.

“You want to leave these on?”, she spat.

“No! I…” for the first time that morning he really was able to look at her. Her hair was wild and the glitter, black eyeliner, and red lipstick from the night before were smudged from their original homes. Still, she looked beautifully debauched. He had both hands over the tops of her thighs but then chose to run his thumb up her center outside of her panties, accentuating his point, “Ladies first.”

Her jaw dropped and she choked trying to stifle a giggle. Now he was the one with the power. He sat up, removing his shirt and then turning Alex over on to her back. Experience taught him that sex was physical, but also mental and he wanted to create something spectacular for his latest partner.  
He began by slipping her dress off, then worshipping every other part of her - the long lines of her neck, the delicate ribcage, the fine bones of her wrist and forearms. He kissed every part and saw smudges of her tattoos reappear across her olive skin. Alex was making noise now and wriggling her hips, desperately trying to press herself into his bare torso. He took his time removing her bra, her fishnets, and finally her panties. She watched as he put his mouth to her core and hoped he could see how much he truly desired this and her. She made a sound that sounded almost like pain and he stopped.

“Fuck,” she covered her face with her arm.

“Are you okay?”, he stilled.

“Fuck! Don’t stop.” She was panting and he smiled, pleased with himself. 

He added a finger and saw her buck against it, her body beginning to flush. He took a break and counted to 10 so she could cool down before continuing. He’d discovered that taking a woman close to the edge, then backing away several times produced the most earth-rattling climaxes. He gave her inner thighs light kisses

When he resumed, he added another finger, then stopped when he saw the flush extending and her nipples hard with desire. This was where the third act. He added a third finger, keeping them horizontal so that she was spread wide. Alex was coming completely undone, as was he. 

He continued manipulating her with his fingers but choked out, “Oh my God, Alex. Oh my God.”

“Fuuuuuck.” she came, spasming around his fingers and releasing several high pitched squeals.

He’d come, too, exploding into his sheets. 

When Alex finished catching her breath, she sat up and started trying to slide under him to reciprocate. She was shocked when she found that there was no need. Darlington wasn't ashamed of it, but was disappointed to see her getting dressed. He'd been momentarily satiated but didn't want her to go.

“Where are you going? Let me make you breakfast.” 

“You made me come and you want to make me breakfast? Is this really why everyone calls you the gentleman of Lethe?” She was making a joke, but avoiding him, too. He wanted to discuss exactly what had just happened, but he understood that she would probably scramble away to avoid it.

“Write up that report. I’ll make us some eggs and read over it when you’re done. Deal?”

She stopped and pivoted towards him, “Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been re-reading the Darlington chapters of Ninth House and he really does have a thing for Alex from the very beginning. LB is subtle about it, smartly so because she plans on making this into 5-ish book series. Alex's feelings towards him are also slipped in. Their relationship feels like destiny.

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two and cannot wait for Leight Bardugo to finish the next installment.


End file.
